1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dedicated electronic devices and/or general purpose computerized systems for analyzing linguistic patterns, and particularly to an Arabic poetry meter identification system and method that identifies the Wazn and Awzan meter forms of the Bayt and Abyate Arabic poems units.
2. Description of the Related Art
Arabic is very different from the Indo-European languages in its letterforms, grammatical structure and sounds. Poetry played a special role in the Arabic culture and its literature. Poetry is freely quoted in homes, palaces, bazaars in the context of speeches, jokes, and the like. Classical Arabic poetry is very structured and quantitative.
Classical Arabic poetry follows strict rhyme forms called Meters (wazn, awzaan). Meters are based on the syllabic structure, rather than stress. A short syllable is a consonant followed by a short vowel. A long syllable is a voweled letter followed by either an unvoweled consonant or a long vowel. A nunation sign (an N sound) at the end of a word also makes the final syllable long. A classical Arabic poem follows one of sixteen or seventeen meters called poem's “sea” (Bahr, Bhour). Each one of these meters consists of a specific sequence of dactyls (Tafeyyla).
The meters normally used in Arabic poetry were first codified in the 8th century by Al-Khalil bin Ahmad and have changed little since. However, there was already sufficient flexibility in the existing meters to allow subsequent practitioners a good deal of innovation.
Each line of a poem is one unit or verse, and is called “Bayt”. A verse or couplet consists of two approximately equal and parallel parts in the same meter. Each half is called (Shatr; Shatrayn). The number of verses in a particular poem depends on the type of poem being composed, but seldom (at the period we are considering) exceeds one hundred. Below is an example of a commonly found meter, called “Taweel” in Arabic poetry, showing long (O—) and short (—) syllables. They represent pairs of half-lines and should be read from right to left. The patterns are not rigidly followed. Two short syllables may be substituted for a long one, and vice versa.
The Khalili transcription of the “Taweel” poem meter is shown below:
|O—O—O——|O—O——| |O—O—O——|O—O——|
The ending rhyme (Qafiya), a common rhyme at the end of each poem line, is basically determined by the last consonant of a word. The ending rhyme also follows specific patterns and should be consistent throughout the poem. In rhyme-words, Nunation (the sound of the N phoneme) is dropped, as (sometimes) is the final vowel. Because short vowels are generally considered long when they occur at the end of a line, the vowels that appear short in their written form also rhyme with their corresponding long vowels. For this reason, it is the pronunciation, not the writing, that counts.
The letters are grouped in specific sequences called “Asoul”. A byte consists of two halves based on specific dactyl pattern forms from these Asouls. Short voweled letters (mutaharrek) are represented by (—). Arabic has three forms of vowel, which are known as Dhammah, /u/; Fathah, /a/; and Kasrah, /i/; however, in poetry meters, all of them are considered having one standard time frame. The unvoweled consonant letter is symbolized by (O).
Dactyls are the partitioning of words according to the meters (Wazn). They consist of the following forms: (a) one short voweled letter (Harf) followed by an unvoweled letter; (b) two short voweled letters followed by an unvoweled letter (O—); and (c) three short voweled letters followed by an unvoweled letter (O—).
The dactyls are grouped into known sets of metawords or forms called Tafeyyla.
There are seventeen types of traditional poetry meters. Dactyls come under two forms. The first one carries five consonant letters, starting with two voweled ones followed by a consonant, then a voweled consonant again before it finishes with a consonant (as in O——O————). However, the second form has seven letters, starting with one voweled consonant followed by one unvoweled consonant, then a voweled consonant, then a consonant, then two voweled consonants, and closed with a consonant. To avoid confusion in the sequel, we will refer to both poem dactyls and their Tafeyyla as “dactyls”.
An electronic or computerized system and method for identifying Arabic poetry meter is desirable. Thus, an Arabic poetry meter identification system and method solving the aforementioned problems is desired.